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I was thinking about this question last night at work and I couldn't come up with anything, I did come to the conclusion that the easiest army to play are the SM, what do you think the hardest army to play is and why?

Probably Tau or Necrons.

Due to the rule changes that have happened since both books were made in key areas everyone can benefit from but also kind of really hurt them, such as cover and everyone being faster.

Melee is more stronger now than it was back in 4th which I think the Tau were designed for. Mostly just because it is now fairly easier for everyone to get there with cover being abundant and the extra move. At least they can't consolidate into a new combat anymore and completely steamroll Tau in one turn.

Eldar are very difficlt to play, because thier armies are not very forgiving of mistakes. If you make a mistake with them, you could loose an entire squad. The require alot of Synergy and tactics to use efficiently.

I'd say Necrons, as only because their rules haven't been updated for some time...

Necrons, Eldar, and increasingly Tyranids.

Harriticus wrote:Necrons, Eldar, and increasingly Tyranids.

So you're telling me that Tyranids are harder to play than Dark Eldar?

Dark Eldar have an extremely powerful new codex. Once you get past the "oh noes all my skimmers are AV 10 and my troops are t3" you can steamroll people.

ph34r wrote:Dark Eldar have an extremely powerful new codex. Once you get past the "oh noes all my skimmers are AV 10 and my troops are t3" you can steamroll people.

But seriously how hard are Tyranids to play? I am a new player to the game and I am beginning to build a Tyranid army. Or should I put together a small SM army to play some smaller point games with and learn all the rules before I delve into the nids? Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

-Eldar (craftworld and dark)
-necrons
-tau

with the Eldars you must have a plan!
you have to have every unit working with the others to get the most killy out of them
and some tactical upgrades

necrons simply because they are very expensive points/wounds wise
so are easy to PO unless they are fielded in ridiculous numbers (20 man units)

tau relates back to the point about eldar, they need to work with other units in the army to be most effective (pathfinders, im looking at you!)
many of the models are over priced (irl and points-wise)
tau have lost out speed wise, everyone else effectively gets 2 movement phases
improved cover saves have made killing the enemy harder, especially as tau only have 1 phase to kill, everyone else has 2 phases of killing!

None of these armies are very forgiving because if you get your deployment slightly out, you are worrying for the rest of the game, other more 'blunt' armies can simply deploy and steamroller everything. SM, Orks, Tyranids, IG etc

Tyranids are more blunt than orks! they are an army dsigned ONLY for steamrollering. unless you are trying to be too clever with them...

To be honest, I don't think Dark Eldar are all that tricky, like someone said, once you get past the fact your AV 10, and T/S3, you can wreck people. They are extremely fast, and can shoot better than most armies, and assault better than most.

I'd say Necrons and Tau, Eldar are pretty tough at points. But to be honest I wouldn't be worried about how hard an army is to play, with so many guides out there on the internet you should be able to overcome many of the difficulties with tactics. (Yes even Necrons.)

DaemonJellybaby wrote:
Tyranids are more blunt than orks! they are an army dsigned ONLY for steamrollering. unless you are trying to be too clever with them...

You sir obviously haven't played nids. They require thought, skill, and a good mind for judging ranges. ONLY!? Steamrolling is not what they are designed for.

eldar then tau imo for hardest

and yea sm are by far the easiest

This is really more than one question: there are armies that are difficult because they're horribly outdated (Necrons and Tau), there are armies that are difficult by design (DE), and there are armies that are a mixture of the two (Eldar).

Just wondering, but what is accounted as difficult?
The Eldar were designed as an "elite" race. It takes quite some skill to play with them.
Hell, they can deliver quite punch, if they are in the right situation. However taking a beating, they don't like that...
So I guess that's the hardest to master, yet the most rewarding to play with.

The Necrons are just outdated and suffer from bad rules...

G00fySmiley wrote:eldar then tau imo for hardest

and yea sm are by far the easiest

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:This is really more than one question: there are armies that are difficult because they're horribly outdated (Necrons and Tau), there are armies that are difficult by design (DE), and there are armies that are a mixture of the two (Eldar).

Both of these really sum up my opinion.

I think generally (aside from just outdated codices)any book that costs you dearly when you make a mistake is tough.

For instance IG, if you make a mistake you easily lose a squad. Losing a squad is bad, but they are so cheap, and you can have so many I don't know if I would say it hurts you all that much.

I feel that way some about the new DE book. Yes there stuff is super squashy, but it's pretty reasonably priced so you have room to build in redundancy and cushion losses.

Regular Eldar are at a point where they are neither tough nor cheap. To me that makes them difficult to play because any screw up is easy for your opponent to capitalize on and costs you a large portion of your army. Eldar units are also more specialist than DE which means you need to have the right unit in the right place or it ain't doing anything useful.

I would put Eldar as the most difficult but not just totally nerfed by the current rules.

Most of the Marine books are easy because even if you do something silly your units are so survivable that they might not completely die, or even if they do they'll take some enemies down with them. Eldar die super pretty easily but often cost comparible to marine squads.

I'd agree that eldar and necron are up there.

The one point of divergeance is that I believe that vanilla SM are actually a HARD army to play, not an EASY one.

I mean, think about it. Every other army you face is going to have stuff in it specifically to handle your army, and given that there are so many of you, your opponent is going to have lots of practice beating on your army to boot.

Then you add on the fact that they're a shooty army... that's terrible at shooting. Even in the details, marines tend to have very confused, expensive units that aren't particularly good at what they are designed to be good at for their points.

I actually play SM as my primary army and I would not say they are hard to play. Their armor makes them more forgiving of mistakes and their units are really general in their purpose. My best description of them is "Skilled at everything but masters of nothing".

How can anyone say Tau are difficult to play. Ohh man, it must be really hard to deploy in a corner and roll 4s to pen anything heavy getting close. Difficult to play well, yes, their troops are terrible for holding mid objectives.

Tyranids are a joke as well, multi wound beasts with a ton of attacks,good toughness, and at least fleet or an increased assault range. I don't even know how you can screw up one of their lists.

Actually hard to play at an average level:
Dark Eldar- Powerful but vunerable units, lists can be misleading.
Necrons- Don't translate well to the new game.

Sisters are harder to play than Tau.

Necrons are very easy to play, you throw some warriors out there with a res orb lord, a few destroyers and a monolith perhaps, a C'tan if you feel like it... WINNING with them, now that's a different story completely.

Chaos can be reasonably difficult in the wrong meta; the basic troop's lack of ATSKNF or reasonable equiv. means that one bad combat could see your unit swept under the carpet, similarly so with their Terminators.

Noise marines and TSons are difficult to use, the former due to the fact that someone was smoking/sniffing/injecting something bad when they created their profile and dedicded to make everything wildly overcosted; and the latter because just having your foot behind a shrub can give you a 4+ cover save in 5th. AP3? No matter, this here tactically-placed bush shall protect me!

Possessed are also pants, and berzerkers fall easily to ranged fire if their rhino is taken out. The HQ choices are poor, with even a Daemon Prince only being taken because it's the lesser evil, they still go down stupidly quickly compared to other models and psychic powers have been all but phased out due to the prevelance of board-wide psychic hoods or other form of psychic protection that the new codices are being loaded with.

Fast attack is useless bar raptors for a quick (albeit expensive) Greater Demon summoning unit (they're cheaper than outflanking chosen in a rhino and more reliable). Heavy support is largely sub-par apart from Obliterators. Defilers/Vindis/Raiders are okay, Preds and Havocs aren't particularly worth it.

You're limited in what you can use so much that once your meta figures out how to beat it, there's not a lot you can do to fight back.

Tau suffer also from Useless Codex Entry Syndrome, as half of their codex is crap or would take up a slot needed by a more staple unit, that and the fact that all of folds in combat coupled with how easy cover is to come by, how easy it is to cover hop over/deep strike in/outflank and how resillient and combat-oriented a lot of new units are becoming makes it hard to pull out a win.

Tau aren't actually very hard to figure out. Eldar I'd say are the hardest, because a lot of their units have crippling overspecialization.

Necrons are.

the biggest weakness is close combat. even weaker then tau.
Why you say? because if 2 entire squads of tau are wiped out in close combat compared to necrons. it doesn't mean you phase out AND necrons cost way more.

not to mention close combat units have gotten a lot faster and stronger.
also they have terrible anti tank. glancing? NO PROBLEM! destroying? no.

-eldar
-Necrons

tau i find not to hard to play and Necrons are much better then tau in colse combat (wich is still crapy)

Hardest to win with: Necrons

Hardest to play: Not tau. The hardest 2 factions (they break even mind you) to easily build good lists are Chaos Space Marines and Sisters of Battle.

Now think about it. Just look at an ork codex and try to make a cost effective list. Psshh easy. IG? Fun everywhere. Demons? CANDY CANDY CANDY. Any of the new marines? OH MY [whatever deity you believe in for me though I'll put] GORK.

I'm not putting Necrons in for hard to play because they're the easiest to play. The entire army is bland to the point where almost all units do the same thing with characteristic differences. Warriors. Warriors with big guns. Warriors on floaty body. Warriors with claws. Leader warrior. Warrior tavern that poops out a pie template or reserve warriors.

-eldar
-Necrons

tau i find not to hard to play and Necrons are much better then tau in colse combat (wich is still crapy)
i hate SM

terranarc wrote:I'm not putting Necrons in for hard to play because they're the easiest to play. The entire army is bland to the point where almost all units do the same thing with characteristic differences. Warriors. Warriors with big guns. Warriors on floaty body. Warriors with claws. Leader warrior. Warrior tavern that poops out a pie template or reserve warriors.

So basically just like Space Marines?

Space marines technically have variety. You could always go all scouts with vanguards, whirlwinds and other fun fun stuff.

But seriously, what is a necron list besides warriors, fast warriors and warriors with 3 big moving pyramids.

I feel like most people aren't answering the OP's question.

He's asked "What is the hardest army to play" and a lot of folks are answering with what they think the least competitive armies to play are.

Necrons: Not competitive, extremely simple to play. The fact that they lack options makes them even simpler. There *is* no game against Necrons where a competent player says, "OMG! I was NEVER expecting that."

Dark Eldar: Probably the hardest army to play. Fragile, extremely unforgiving of mistakes, brutal if you can't wield them with finesse.

Daemons: Also hard to play. Luck affects your deployment and deep-striking, target priorities depend on what you get out and where. Skill only gets you so far when your entire army is driven by random factors.

I agree with Dash about Daemons and Dark Eldar. My first army was Tau and my most frequent opponent is a Tau player. Tau aren't that hard to play. I would go with Daemons as the hardest to play, followed by Eldar and Dark Eldar. I have no experience what-so-ever with Sisters, so I can't comment. The randomness of Daemons and the fragility of the Eldar/ Dark Eldar make playing them a challenge.

My Eldar friend told me once, "I play Tyranids (with the current codex) when I don't want to have to think." That sums it up pretty nicely.